


Ad Hoc

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Game, Attempted Murder, Based of Kink Meme Thing, Dubcon or Noncon Moirallegiance, Everyone is BAMF, M/M, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings, Violence, possible happy ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-11-10
Packaged: 2018-03-08 03:49:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3194177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Don't play tag with the crazy troll, right Makara?</p>
<p>(Unless you really, really need it.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Start You Off

**Author's Note:**

> Based off of a kinkmeme prompt, posted here for reasons. Has developed into a rather large story.

Your first impressions of trolls are pretty much never wrong—so this kid is an idiot.  
  
Carcinogeneticist had got a mouth just goes and goes. You know his type; puffed-up grab bag of insecurities, lusus-coddled and rural-raised, never had a sharp blade to his wriggler throat. His loud, attention-hoarding opinions turn you paranoid for your most thorough-harshed mellow. This one, though, he’s dialed up to _two hundred_ from the first rant you read. You can distinguish him by _headache_. It gets bad. You start to see him everywhere—someone loses their temper with too exotic a turn of phrase, or too many capitals come sprinting up in a row. But hell no, that bit wasn’t clever enough (come on, as if carcinogeneticist would ever be reduced to single-syllable insults) and—oh hell, did that anon just calmly explain his feelings? Naw. Ain’t him.  
  
It really stresses you out that you’re seeing carcinogeneticist’s shadow, because you got bigger concerns, you know? Ascension is coming, and you’re gonna have a fleet to command in another sweep or two. You’re gonna be at war and hella busy. You’ve just cleared eight and you still don’t have a single quadrant filled.  
  
You’ve got a problem, as your fishbrother puts it. That concern comes free, not half-pale (because he’s one of them that you like breathing). That problem thing he’s mentioned? Yeah. You kind of broke the last three faces in, fuck, bad as that sits in your gut. Your quadrants don’t live too long.  
  
So you got another problem right the hell now, on account of this noisy little fucker.  
  
You know a fair bit about him already, cause of this thing you’ve got about collecting information. You don’t need your chucklevoodoos nestled up into whatever painfully anemic panbake the kid has. Carcinogeneticist is a loudmouthed, impulsive dipshit. He makes it easy.  
  
Mostly, you find out what you’d already guessed—he’s from way out in the boonies, and thinks he’s tough (but you doubt he’s ever taken another troll). And he’s definitely a he; ain’t nothing he don’t bitch about, but he don’t make mention of rumblespheres. You already knew that he had a way with words, same as Eridan gets on with bullets—use liberally, and if repeated application doesn’t work, change caliber—but you learn he never runs out of them and doesn’t repeat himself. You learn that he ain’t ever seen a good mood he didn’t scare off right quick (annoying little fucker). You learn that his posturing and fussing ain’t a very good disguise for the heart that literally _bleeds_ out of him, messiahs; it’s like he wants the whole planet up and coated with glops of pity.  
  
He flirts like he means it. You’ve read that pale erotica written up to tell them how to get their self-worth in order, all back-handed insults and precision point sneers. Read him smoking up someone else red as can be that he’s cheering for them in the upcoming duel, and got about six videos, three virtual demos, and a couple of pamphlets all lined up for their viewing pleasure—all support and confident excitement. He don’t care if it’s anon or a full-length profile he’s chatting up. Carcinogeneticist goes off on every last one like he’s got a spectacular grudge and it’s all set to make you blush and grumble because you ain’t one bit romantic, but he’s got a _way_ with those words, doesn’t he?  
  
But it ain’t quadrant pity. Won’t even give his trollian address, just runs off when he’s through and pops up somewhere else. By the time you finally talk to carcinogeneticist, you are so blisteringly done with this heap of bullshit that you’re ready to tear him in half by the horns. Motherfucker needs to CALM HIS TITS.  
  
But then again, you have a habit of playing with your food.  
  
 _Terminallycapricious asked:_  
  
HeY tHeRe, I wAs Up AnD hAvInG tHiS iSsUe, ReAl NoT fUn AnD nO kInD oF bItChTiTs At AlL iF yOu KnOw WhAt I mEaN. hEaRd YoU wErE tHe MoThErFuCkEr To TaLk To?  
  
 _Carcinogeneticist replied:_  
  
FUCKING JUGGALOS. IT WOULD HAVE TO BE A FUCKING JUGGALO. WHO IN THE FUCK SUGGESTED YOU COME DRENCH ME IN YOUR VOMITOUS STUPIDITY, ASSCLOWN? BUT FINE, DISPLAY YOUR LIFE’S FAILURES FOR ALL OF CYBERSPACE TO MOCK. ASTONISH ME WITH YOUR IGNORANCE. LET’S FIND OUT WHAT KIND OF SHITTY ‘ISSUE’ YOU THINK THAT YOUR TINY THINKPAN IS INCAPABLE OF RESOLVING.  
  
His conviction that he can fix your life kind of… Makes you grin? Not that it ain’t obnoxious as all the hells right and proper, but it’s got some endearment too.  
  
You almost tell him the truth—that your pity is fucked, and you end up hunting your redmates worse than you do your black (not that you’ve had a pitch that didn’t end in messy death either, but you aren’t supposed to hurt red and you know it). You’re as anonymous online as he is, and even if you weren’t, who would be able to enforce a stop to your actions? Wouldn’t be half as much an issue if these motherfuckers would _quit trying to climb into quadrant with you_ , because you’re damned sure not doing the seducing. Maybe word would get out and they’d just fuck off. You’re a little tired of killing them off.  
  
But your momentary descent into self-pity is distracted by the desire to fuck with him.  
  
 _Terminallycapricious asked_ :  
  
WeLl ThIs TrOlL dOnE bRoKe InTo My HiVe AnD lOoKs LiKe I kIlLeD a MoThErFuCkEr. AiN’t CoOl. SuGgEsTiOnS?  
  
 _Carcinogeneticist replied:_  
  
HOW IS IT THAT THE SIMPLE CONCEPT OF TAKING OUT THE TRASH CONTINUES TO ELUDE YOU AT THE AGE WHERE YOUR OBVIOUSLY IMPAIRED LUSUS GAVE YOU COMPUTER ACCESS? OKAY. LET ME SIMPLIFY MATTERS. RUG. ROLL. BURY. AT LEAST SIX MILES FROM YOUR HIVE. AND IF ANYONE ELSE SAW YOU, CLEAN THEM UP. AND YOU’RE A FUCKING ASSHOLE FOR KILLING THE DIPSHIT TOO. NEVER SPEAK TO ANYONE EVER AGAIN. WHAT IS EVEN WRONG WITH YOU?  
  
He doesn’t really want to know--he is trying to shoo you off. So of course you’re going to reply.  
  
 _Terminallycapricious asked:_  
  
GoT sCaReD, mY iNvErTeBrOtHeR. aNd I aIn’T gOt BeSt CoNtRoLl Of My ImPuLsEs If YoU kNoW wHaT i MeAn?  
  
You’re always afraid, really. Every feeling imaginable gets balled up when you’re like that. The fear and the anger, and the burning desire to protect whoever pushed you in the first place. That moment where you cross into self-preservation and you’ve got to stop them, so you can stop yourself.  
  
Blood and calm reward you.  
  
 _Carcinogeneticist replied:_  
  
OF COURSE I AM DRAMATICALLY AWARE OF YOUR UNHINGED MENTAL STATUS, SHITSHELF. YOU WORSHIP THE CLOWN GODS. YOU ARE MIGHTILY FUCKED IN THE THINKPAN.  
  
You are going to hunt this fucker down if he doesn’t stop talking trash on your religion. That’s serious blasphemy right there.  
  
AT THE RISK OF SOUNDING LIKE ONE MORE WHIMPERING LOWBLOOD TRYING TO PACIFY YOUR INSANE BULLSHIT, LOOK. IT’S OKAY. THE INTRUDER INSTIGATED, SO YOU’RE IN THE CLEAR. CALM THE FUCK DOWN AND STOP TALKING TO ME. YOUR LUSUS MIGHT ACTUALLY GIVE A SHIT. UNLIKE ME. REMEMBER: RUG.  
  
And for some reason that puts a smile on your face—Carcinogeneticist’s silly ending to your made-up story. Dispose of the body, take comfort from your lusus (not that you got one) and fucking deep-breathe until you’re okay not to murder again. You think it’s kind of cute, in a panless way, that he figures highbloods work like that. You laugh to yourself and leave the computer.  
  
Midway through the meeting you’ve been called to, Eridan starts giving you looks. It’s all wrigglers here—all junior operatives being groomed for command, and Eridan has been sitting through these functions with the same long-suffering look since you joined. “What are you smiling for?” He wants to know.  
  
He ain’t said the thing out loud, cause that would land you in some hot water. You’ve got your mind in his (it’s just easier to ignore the instructors that way, easier to entertain yourselves). Not taking control or nothing. Frankly, you’re not sure you could; Eridan tolerates your voodoo but his will is iron and you’ve seen him fight off the Spiderbitch, which sure as hell ain’t nothing. This is just chatting and listening in on his thoughts.  
  
“No reason,” you tell him. Your voodoos are a one-way ride. Carcinogeneticist is your secret.  
  
When you do give in and educate the shouty motherfucker on how highbloods work—no calming until you done killed all that make you unsteady and stomped on the corpses—you get a fucking _page_ of text, and the most salient among the eruption of words is this:  
  
I WOULD LIKE TO STRESS THAT YOUR BACKWARDS RITUALIZED VIOLENCE GRUB PROBLEMS SHOULD NOT BE RELEVANT IN THE SLIGHTEST WAY TO MY LIFE BUT FINE, IF YOU’RE GOING TO ASSAULT MY INBOX, AS YOU PRESUMABLY ALSO INFLICT VIOLENCE ON DAISIES AND INANIMATE GLASSES OF DRINKING FLUID, KNOW THAT YOUR LACK OF SELF-CONTROL IS A JOKE. YOU HEAR THAT? A FUCKING JOKE. TELL IT TO SOMEONE WHO CARES, SO THEY CAN RUN INTERFERENCE ON YOUR EXPECTORATION OF PROBLEMS. SET UP A SYSTEM. EVERY TIME YOU GROWL, HAVE SOMEONE TELL YOU WHAT A FUCKING IDIOT YOU ARE.  
  
EXCEPT OH, YOU ARE SURELY SO REPULSIVE THAT NO MOIRAIL WOULD EVER HAVE YOU, SO LET ME RISK MY OWN DIGNITY HERE TO TELL YOU SHOOSH, YOU PATHETIC WASTE OF OXYGEN. YOU FREAKING THE FUCK OUT BECAUSE SOMETHING OBNOXIOUS BARGES INTO YOUR HIVE IS NOT ANY KIND OF SPECIAL EVENT. SIT THE FUCK DOWN. PLANT YOUR ASS. DEPLOY KNEE FLEXIBILITY. THINK OF OTHER WAYS TO TELL YOURSELF TO SIT THE HOLY FUCK BACK DOWN.  
  
YOU, TC, ARE FUCKING HORRIBLE AT LIFE. AND I KNOW THAT IF YOU ARE ANNOYING ME, YOU’RE CLEARLY CAPABLE OF WORDSMITHING YOUR WAY OUT OF OBSCENE MURDERS, CONGRATULATIONS.  
  
STOP TALKING TO ME.  
  
And fuck, you _cannot_ stop smiling.


	2. Lay the Trap

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter two. Action starts soon, woo.

Eridan is allowed in your hive as he wants—if he catches you in a bad mood, see, he can fight you off damn effectively. The rest of the time you’re just chill about it. His quadrants don’t work out for different reasons than yours, and both of you are terrible at making friends, so you tend to get along.

Except moments like these. You just found him sprawled in your computer chair.

Which chat logs he’s got open, that's apparent. You growl. His eyes get big—he snaps out of the way of your fist. Flutters out of the chair and sends a lacquered dress uniform boot shooting into your chin. You reel back. Eridan follows his cheap shot with a quick blow to the sternum, but it leaves him close enough for you to grab and haul down. _Your_ territory, this is, and the fucker needs to learn a lesson. You get in a couple of real good hits before you’re too tangled in his cape to continue.  
  
“ _Mine_ ,” you growl at him, voice still coming out pitched low and rumbling. You kind of try to form a couple more words on how ‘mine’ Carcinogenetist’s saved messages are, but all that comes out is a thundering snarl. Eridan, who’s got fucking steel for bones, rolls his eyes.

“Fine, I get it! Yours.” As you ease, he sits up with a wince, probing his bleeding lip.  After contemplation, he kicks you in the shin.

“…I break anything?”

“Nah,” Eridan catches your disappointed frown and scowls. “Thanks for the concern. What are you playing at anyway?” He gestures at your computer.  
  
The past few months, you’ve kept on Carcinogeneticist.

You’ve gotten his real name—Karkat, which pops off the tongue so cute it makes you laugh (him ranting right along). You, well—you’re spinning him a real sugartrap lie of a troll. Highblood all out of control, self-medicating with your sopor, swilling your miracle drinks and drowning in your gods. No pitypale to get you calm, just the company of your rage. Most of it’s true, except your gentleness to him. You want to tie him up and do unto his tender little mind until he’s snuffed out. Karkat’s near nine—just a sweep younger than you—and that he’s quadrantless despite his flirting and lonely as fuck and it’s Ascension soon enough.

You’ve learned he’s _perfect_.

“There something interesting about captain grouchapalooza?” As you snarl, Eridan wrinkles his nose. “I’m not trying to interfere. Just, why are you pretending to be _nice_?” He pronounces the word ‘nice’ like something real unpleasant just died in his personal space. You have to thump him upside the horns as you settle into your chair.

“Cause grouchapalooza pretends like he ain’t,” you say. Eridan frowns. But you don’t particularly give a shit about your fishbrother’s puzzlement, cause Karkat just messaged you and you’re already grinning. Eridan observes your face as you open the message up.

“Oh my god,” he murmurs, wide-eyed. “This is why you’ve been so cheerful lately.”

“I guess?” Karkat is shooting his mouth off a mile a minute, giving you no time to reply, just entertaining you with his exasperation. Your fingertips drum on your chin as you read. A purr sort of bubbles in your throat, but Eridan’s here, so you hold off.

Eridan leans close, but he’s looking at you, not your screen, so you don’t charge at him. “Holy shit,” he says slowly. “You’ve got it in for him?” Accurate phrasing if you ever heard it. You glance away from the screen and smile slow.

“Brother, you ain’t even got the slightest idea.” Eridan shivers at your smile. You laugh, your stomach all twisted with fluttering and the warm burn of violence.

 ----       

You get the biggest fucking gift of the sweep when Karkat hits your chatlog with a diamond.

Maybe ten minutes you just stare at it with your jaw down. You reach up to your horns when you think enough to move, cause you need to get calm. He must have logged off after dealing you this last blow of pity, casual and smooth. That motherfucker.

And then: GAMZEE?                   
  
Not logged off then.

Hell, this ain’t even _suave_. Wordy motherfucker that he is—you’ve got him _shy_ , which he damned well ain’t. Karkat stutters—that’s what it is, his sentences disjointed and trying too hard and madder by the minute—justification for it. You bask. You hush him ‘BrOtHeR nO’ and you tell him how confectioner’s sweet you’ve been seeing him. You’re a mess. A purring, lopsidedly grinning mess, your head pillowed on your arms as you type your swooning answers, letting your bubbling delight do the talking. You’re gonna shoosh every fraction of nerves his confession put in him.

Fuck, you are _so_ pale for him. You want to kiss his fingertips and hug him to you for real—he’ll be littler if he’s a warmblood. Could just wrap around him and purr over every inch.

See, if you are genuine pale for him, and that just makes the whole thing better. Once he comes for you, you’re going to torment him to death. He’s going to die screaming and begging for mercy, so pitiable.

A few well-staged breakdowns later—the kind with convenient computer access and you praying up your rage—you get him in a vidchat and, oh. Your heart melts in your chest. His computer camera makes him look so little. Karkat’s got all kinds of spectacular hair (for all that he snorts at yours) and big eyes that are guaranteed to give you piling thoughts and you don’t care how shitty the audio feed is, his voice is a shouted-out rasp that comes too quiet and you can’t wait to have him singing in pain. No scars, not on his hands or face. You know you were right. He’s never fought with another troll if he’s so smooth, and that’s how he’s stayed so kind. He’ll twist with violence. He’ll break deep.

You push your palm against the screen in wonder and those eyes get even bigger. He bites at his lip with a row of blunted shark teeth that make you smile. Touches his fingers shyly over too. “You’re such a malfunction,” Karkat murmurs to you.

“You gotta let me come see you,” you say. Hell if you even know the general region. All this video tells you is that it’s not underground. Karkat has no intention of telling anyone where he roosts at. He’s so careful with that.

He bites his lip again. You croon on accident and he looks so startled, pleased smile on his lips. You do it again. He pretends to pap you through the screen and fills your ears with his static-drenched voice until your spine tries to spill right out of you. When you go quiet, no longer murmuring your endearments, it’s because your mouth wants to shape different words.

 _Don’t come_ kinds of words. _Don’t ever come. Just stay soft and precious and let me dote on you through the internet connection because fuck_

Can you even hurt this kid? You’re not sure anymore.

“Gamzee?” If you put your claws through your computer screen right now, Karkat’s image will dissolve, and you’re not ready to give it up yet. “You’re—“ He cuts himself off. Your eyes close and you hum in your throat. “This question is so fucking bizarre, I mean, I can see you in all your ridiculous glory and there’s nothing on fucking fire—congratulations for managing to hide the obvious indicators of your failed survival skills, but—“ He makes a grouchy noise before he spills it in a rush, “—Are you safe?”

You? Barely anyone but your ancestor and a handful of violetbloods like the Amporas can still take you in a fight. Your Empress looks on you fondly and you’ll be serving her for centuries. You, who kills easier than this kid breathes. Karkat’s horns are the size of plums.

Your palm moves against the screen, papping before you even have a mind to. “I’m safe,” you tell him. _Are you?_ You want to ask—it’s part of your persona. And he just looks so helpless. You want to ask. _Are you gonna stays safe?_ Your tongue won’t form the words. You’re the biggest danger to him and you see his mouth crinkle in this stiff gesture that goes up to his eyes, genuine and unpracticed.

“That’s good.” His fingers stroke against yours, imperceptibly. “I’m so sick of worrying about your useless ass.”  
  
“I always worry about you,” you say truthfully. Your fingers scrape against the screen. “Karkat, come to me.” Your words rush out. “I’ll take you under my protection, I’ll keep you safe with me and we can be together for good, the pair of us. You could look after me—“ You’ve put this twisted, pained look on his face, and you don’t like it, you groan. “Kar, sugargrub—“

“Don’t call me that.” Grumbled like a thousand times before. You lunge at the computer. You want him to be yours and he’s not here, he’s nowhere, you can’t even track him and you have to hunt him down if he won’t come. You’ve never wanted anything so badly. His eyes glow with the light of his screen. “Sit down. Shoosh.”

“No,” you say, and you’re growling, frustrated, losing your lie. His eyes narrow.

“ _Gamzee_.”

You sit, oh god do you _sit_. You fold into your seat from his tone and stare hopelessly at this troll and you are very good at acting. You may have even fooled himself.

“I pity you,” you say, and he echoes it a shade too fast, unprompted, like you both tried to say it at the same time. You blush and he ducks his head. You grab your own horn. Watch him bite his lip. He hides entirely behind his sweater sleeves, head pillowed in his arms. His skinnier fingers find his own horn. You blush deeper—he likes it. He likes you. You stroke like you think he would, slow and generous, over the whole arch. He doesn’t mirror your actions, just nudges aggressively at his own like he’s angry, and somehow, don’t that just make you think he’d be all the gentler with you? You could fit his horns in your mouth. You could crunch them to shards with your teeth.

“Stay safe,” Karkat says, voice muffled. “I am fucking begging you, stay safe. You out of control piece of shit. Don’t let anybody mark you up.” His hand falls away from his horn and it’s just a bright wriggler eye glaring at you—fuck, he’s still too young for hemochrome. Either he lied about his age or he’s a hell of a late bloomer, because shouldn’t lowbloods get theirs earlier? “Don’t let anybody make you scared,” he finally says.

“I’m not,” you assure him, and he gives you this look that kind of makes your world slow down. Toes curling, blushing kind of slowdown.

“Liar,” he snaps. “You look so fucking haunted.” His voice twists as he says it. He won’t take much longer to come to you. So easy.

Yeah, you’re sure you look pretty haunted.


	3. Suffer No Fools

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp.

When he finally tells you he’ll visit, Karkat doesn’t tell you when he’ll show up. Hell, you’re not that sure he’s gonna. Won’t give you a straight answer. It’s like he expects someone else to read this message, or—does he know about you? Your gut twists. You reread your logs over and over again. You throw your computer across the room, equip your clubs, and bash it into a sheet before you stop making panicked wriggler sounds. You clean your whole fucking hive that week, you make him piles. Actual _piles_. You’ve had pale flings, and you never got to piles, but you build them for him in three sizes, trying to guess at what the computer was showing you, what he’d like. Eridan starts giving you weird looks (though to be fair, those might have more to do with you communicating solely through grunts, monosyllables, or your clubs). You chase him off, which you needed to do anyway, and then panic all alone in your oversized hive, waiting for your moirail. Your new computer arrives first.

You’ve never gotten anywhere _close_ to this boiled-up pity frenzy without a living, breathing troll in your space. You have no one to kill. So you push inside yourself instead, delve into your mind. You sink to the floor and attack Karkat behind your wide eyes. Once or twice, you stave off the desire to damage him and you lose yourself to fantasies of cradling a battered, breathing body, cooing and caring for him, trying to love him like you should. And it is the loving him that breaks you down again.

And slowly, your mind hardens back up. Oh, you still love him, sure. But you know exactly what he’s for. Invite him inside, lock the doors, and beat him to death.

You meditate peacefully on this and get up and eat. Clean your hive again because you kind of trashed it.

Two weeks later, there’s a knock at your door and you open it. You have, after rushing to the door over and over in a flail of exuberant limbs, learned to be wary of salesmen and messengers.

But what you have is a travelworn sack of dust, massively scuffed boots set wide, ragged gray cloak making the figure shapeless and featureless until the hood sags back and you see the dirty mop of hair and the sharp, bright wriggler eyes and those little cute as fuck horns.

Karkat comes up to your ribcage. You feel like a giant. And you are paralyzed in awe of the little creature and the way every warm, sweet sensation explodes in the heart of you on sight. Messiahs, just look at him. Karkat doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move, just glares a little and looks so very unimpressed by you and your hive and everything else that you actually fucking shuffle your feet as though this is inspection day and he’s the fucking Grand Highblood himself.

"Well, douchefuck?” Karkat demands. “Invite me in.” He’s got a gorgeous voice offline. Rasp and velvet, made for every sweet sound a troll can make and wasted on this pushy, commanding snap that is a dead ringer for every chat log—you could pick him out of a crowd by it. You could have picked him out before you even knew his _name_.

You remember how speaking goes. “Yeah, come right the hell in, little motherfucker.” You step aside, reveal the interior of your hive, the priceless murals and spiral staircases, the gleaming indigo-threaded marble. Karkat sidles in with a strange, jerky gait, like he’s not sure where his limbs go. His eyes search your hive and find you. You lean down on some reflex, because lowbloods cower from you. A slap or two, tenderize him for when you really get your hurt on. See him shocked.

Karkat’s arms are warm and he leans up on his toes to coil them around your neck. Arrests you midstrike. He spins this terribly soft purr into your hair until your muscles decide to shake. Your arms tumble around him in confusion and you kneel because the angle is wrong. He nestles in, and he’s so hot you know he’s got to be sick (that why it took so long for him to get here?), but he doesn’t seem to care.

“Gamzee,” Karkat breathes against you, pretty voice of his all choked up. “Never thought I’d see you.”

“Naw, you were gonna come, of course you were—“ Your voice has gone tight with feeling. How you aren’t flying out of control, you don’t know. He’s so small, so fragile and your heart is bleeding down your ribs. “—We’re serendipity, my little brother, you had to come to me. Always had to.” There’s a slight shift, like maybe he nodded, and your heart, it just, it breaks. You gasp.

But here comes the wicked rage to protect you. You shudder, nuzzle at the softness of the nape of his neck, decide you’ll tear it bloody with your teeth. Chew on him. You pet a hand down his back and then slink from his arms to close your door.

You’ve got this all planned out, and by the script, you don’t start here. Karkat looks up at you questioningly, and the exhausted bags under his eyes put a tender ache in your heart that you just cannot bear. You take one of his small hands in yours.

So warm.

He rises to his feet. “Come on,” you tell him. “Got plenty of time for us to get our romance on, but won’t do to leave a travelworn brother all tired and hungry, you feel me?” Karkat grumbles something that sounds pleased and trots after you, gait smoothing a little bit—odd, how that works. Usually lowbloods have to hurry to keep up with your stride, and Karkat ain’t at all big, but he’s got a grace that makes you wonder. “Any preference for food?” You stall. You’re leading him into place. Left wing is full of twisting, labyrinthine passages. There’s even a little food hidden in some places, if he can avoid the traps. You’re not planning on feeding him, not really, but if he can draw it out, make it a better hunt for you, you’ll give him every chance in the _world_.

You’re not listening to his gabbing anymore. Your heart thunders with anticipation and despair at once as you near the stage for your show. You love him so much, he will be the best high you’ve ever had. You nearly push him inside. He doesn’t notice how the door locks after you—the click is imperceptible—rambles to you as you equip your clubs. Subtle-like, on the opposite side of your body, so he won’t see until you connect a few blows. That should calm you down, and you’ll pretend to let him go.

It’s been so long since you’ve done this. You’ve missed it something terrible.

Karkat suddenly stops walking (unscripted) and you freeze too. It’s important that he doesn’t know until you send him flying, that you have him holding your hand so gently, have his voice baring trust for as long as possible. You fret, but he doesn’t look at you, he looks back at the door.

“Huh,” Karkat says, dirty brow wrinkling. “Thought I felt the draft cut off. I guess I should have expected a spoiled highblood to actually use an autolock instead of closing a fucking door after himself.” His rolls his eyes, throws you a scowl. Nostalgia makes your knees week. He’s looking at the door. It’s perfect.

You swing, with relish, so silent it hurts because you need to hear the crack of it against his flesh.

He’s so little.

And cracks to life like _whipcord,_ all hells attend—not with the force of your blow—but flung around it. You didn’t play just now; _you swung for real_. But he hopped it.

There’s still about sixteen ways you could kill him instantly, right here, but the fact that he just avoided your hit without even looking has thrown you for a fucking loop. Seriously. His hand is still in yours.

Granted, not very nicely, and there are five needle claws in your skin, but it’s the principle of the matter.

Karkat growls into the strangled quiet. “Gamzee, the _fuck_ was that?”

How could you have _wasted_ your shot at holding him sweet until you put the first bruises on him? Messiahs! But you can make up for it with the magnitude of the bruises. Spin into a lash straight down—you break Karkat’s collarbone—only no, he loops _again_. You lunge in frustration, three more strikes failing to land before Karkat has stopped shouting at you. He crushes into your space. You’ve got more fighting experience than fuck near anyone, but he moves funny and you almost don’t understand until you realize he’s danced your limbs into a tangle, he’s behind you, you can’t hit him, and then he kicks out your knee with enough force to smash you to the ground in a haze of pain.     

“Calm down!” He’s shouting. “ _Gamzee_ , just—“ And elbow straight to the chin. This time it connects. His head snaps back, but he doesn’t collapse, so you didn’t break his neck. You drive up at him. Send him flying this time, yes, no mistake. Feels good to finally connect. He’s here, he’s right in front of you, _you’re hurting him_.

Well, until he kicks out. _Fuck,_ this one hurts. You stumble back and he comes at you like you never hit him, like—like he’s steel-boned sea salt-baked warriorblood. But you _feel_ something in his shoulder give when you swipe down on it. He rakes his claws down your face and slams the heel of his hand up—you see stars. And he’s sprinting down the hallway.

You’re _supposed_ to let him have a head start—but you take off after him because your fucking opponents do not run. You never let them run. You let your victims flee, but he’s not—god, you’re limping from what he did to your knee and you’re bleeding all over.

He’s fast as all motherfuck. The lockstep gait from before has disappeared into liquid grace. You have to hurl both clubs to shepherd him down the right hallways, equipping new ones as you go. Once you get him down a dead end, you don’t rush into it. Turn the corner cautiously, prepared to meet his nasty little surprises.  
  
He slides between your legs like a streak of lightning and cracks something hard against the base of your skull. Drops you to the ground. By the time you’ve gotten upright again, he’s gone from your sight.

Karkat is locked in with you, cause that door ain’t gonna open and there’s no other way out. It’s okay. You can salvage this.

Karkat Vantas is a bleeding heart wriggler who dotes on every troll to spam his inbox and your mind is full of his snapping motions, the minimalist grace of him darting at you. How he twisted around that first strike wide-eyed and shocked with you—but very sure of his motions.

You think he might have had you fooled better than you fooled him.


	4. The Chase

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long. I had to edit in an arc that I wasn't expecting to write. I take forever doing that, but I think this chapter is finally good to go.

You’re proud of that one-perigee record of yours. The nights were tallied on the wall by your coon (you had new paint to practice with) and it was only when you stopped keeping score that you realized you’d never wash the paint off. If the feelings die before they do, you don’t _gotta_ end it bloody.

Hair frizzed wild with static when he looked up, stubby rough little fingers skidding your palm, hollowness in his eyes made to implore good dreams. He was an open wire, and you could feel him before you touched. If a rainstorm can miss the desert, that is how you feel.

First of all, no one is supposed to outlast three days once you actually _get_ to lashing out. You’ll fess up that he got the drop on you the first time, sure. But you’ve got training and size and the territory advantage. His claws are so deep in your quadrant that every time your heart beats, it’s squeezing on this image of him crumpled up and still—no chance at holding yourself in check for a perigee. So _what_ if he’s got a sharp edge on him?

When Karkat makes it past five days and still breathes, the bottoms of your feet are sore from chasing after him. You’re figuring he’s probably got rockets up his ass, and that’s only when you actually see your miracle pale. You have gone over and over the chat logs in your mind for any clue of what this is, what _he_ is—little snub-horned and warm in your hand—where he could learn evasion tactics. You can’t think of one fucker who’d train someone south of blue, but you also cannot fucking make capture of your quarry.

The disturbance in the dust is the most you see of Karkat that third day, although sometimes you can taste little snatches of the thoughts in his head. His fears shake hands with yours and welcome you inside. You can find your face there, in the vague shadows that define his thoughts, and you get dizzy where you stand, because Karkat’s thinkpan pulls no punches. You damn well weren’t thinking of tactical advantages when you opened the door. Karkat’s heart flutters two beats for the price of one when he thinks on it and he squeezes the makeshift weapons in his hand.

He fears when he thinks of you, yes. He fears what harm has been done to the hapless, gentle highblood you made up, and if it can be undone when he goes, if when you charge at him and roar, insensible to his questions, if that’s because some troll is hurting you even now. It is a flavor of fear called _worry_ and he’s truly pale for you. Was just as diamondstruck as you were when he found your hive.

After that, you have to see him. You know a good spot for ambush when you see it—the sealed door he’s been circling—and you finally get him up against the wall and hammer in a line of dents after his little head. Your blood still sings, though he ain’t exactly looking good. Crack-lipped with blood dried black, pits round his eyes darkening cause you been pushing him with no sleep or rest, croaking when he tries to shout you to sense. Your hands shake. Motherfucking _shake_. Your ancestor would tan your hide if he could see, but Karkat is all fucked up and you ain’t used to aiming your clubs this low and it hurts your shoulders like your throat. You must falter your attack, because you had him and you _know_ it, but suddenly he springs under your arm and runs. You stumble after him, but it’s useless until the starvation slows him down.

You’ve been double-checking the food stashes. What he’s sniffed out ain’t sufficient for five days’ hard running, but it’s something, ain’t it? Each mouthful will make Karkat last longer. You catch yourself laughing more often than not, kind of hard, choking laughter that spills like a sinner begs. Funny shit. Starving him will kill; starving you will madden. Maybe you’ll eat him to the bones when you pin him down at last.

One of the traps, you see he used some kind of red liquid. It’s all over the steel jaws of the mechanism and you’ve never seen anything like it. It smells like cherries and chalk and it’s so motherfucking bright. You hold the conversation in your head, asking him where he got such grand paints.

_GAMZEE, SHOOSH,_ Karkat tells you with his blocky type and lips made crooked around big teeth. _YOU DON’T HAVE TO RUN YOUR MOUTH; I’M NOT LOGGING OFF. JEGUS GOD FINE, THE TRAVEL BOOTS ARE PACKED, YOU WIN, AND I SWEAR IF YOU ASK ME ONE MORE TIME WHEN I’LL BE THERE, THEY ARE GOING UP YOUR WASTE CHUTE. WHAT THE FUCK DO I NEED TO BRING YOU ART SUPPLIES FOR?_  
  
Because I want you, brother, I want you to last forever on my walls and hands and arms.

_SHOOSH_ , he just says, twisting his mouth like it’s bitter and you grab for him because you need—

You need him crushed like a bug under your heel, all his guts squashed out while he writhes. You blink twice and realize you were dreaming. Motherfuck, you ain’t supposed to sleep on the hunt. You flop upright, yawning and kneading your eyes to try to rid them of Karkat’s ghost. You give up with a whine of frustration and shove upright. Karkat is all to blame. You cannot calm down and that is _his fault_.

_Arms gone round you, warm with fever, scratchy cloak, cheek pressed to yours as your knees buckled and you_ could _have cupped his face, could have touched those ungainly ears, asked him for any secret at all and you’d take it to the grave; that part of him, you could hold forever without rage—_

His fault.

Gotta put it to an end. You spur your legs on, pushing harder as you run, until your clubs are slippery with your own sweat. A machine to his end, stupid with pity. You get his scent. Karkat takes the lead. Neither of you are looking where you’re going. You just cannot stop again, you know?

So when one of you sets off a trap, it startles the fuck out of you. One minute you’re all roars and the need to get something warm in your hands, then you’re kinda cocking an ear to all this funky clicking and whirring noise and Karkat looks back at you like he’s trying to figure out if you’re the one making clockwork sounds. You blink. Several dozen feet of steel spring out of the tiles, cutting Karkat from your sight.

This is an effective way to make your vision go blind red with anger.

You clear the floor, your full strength swung down at the downstroke of this arc, driving weight through your clubs for the spear you lack. The collision grinds your bones, snaps your head back with a clatter of your fangs. You see your own surprise, very literally.

Ain’t a wall. It’s a mirror. A warped, crooked mirror, without one solitary crack in it. Given your calculation involved mirror shards, your jaw drops. Then you fling yourself to the left because the tiles under you whine a rapid _clickclickclick_. Near cuts you in half just the same—and now it’s a whole damn forest of knife-edged mirrors, erupting from the floor left and right at the most motherfucking delightful angles to make a troll significantly shorter and more exsanguinated. You swing with your club at the one nearest to you, but you don’t even have the chance to see if you dealt damage because the next mirror rising from the floor comes out spiraling at your fucking face and you are very busy dancing away, vehemently wanting to box your own ears.

Cause see, wriggler you was all into the scripture and he took ‘strut through a desert of blades’ mighty literally. _Globes_ , you think, as you sprint through the rapidly thickening mirror maze. _You know who doesn’t need to know about the carnival phase? Goddamn Karkat._

Don’t get you wrong, you’re faithful. Just ain’t gotta be proclaiming it up to the stars every six seconds no more. Real faith ain’t being the loudest motherfucker, which you know _now_ , but fat lot of good that does you while you flail away from a wriggler’s interpretation of the holy word. Your little paleflirt of yours got eyes in his head. You have a hand over your eyes.

This is your fault. He could be dead, in which case no one would know.

You stumble into a section of floor that’s doing a little less clicking, catch your breath. Real funhouse mirror shit, you assess grimly. There will be an exit, it will be horribly obvious—probably involve indigo curtains and neon lights, and you really wish you were kidding about that—and you’d bet a whole box of faygo the door requires a key in the dead opposite direction of the exit. Wriggler you’d be wanting his mazework admired more thoroughly, because otherwise he couldn’t come off looking like a big enough tool.

You ain’t gonna kick one of the mirrors, but you’re gonna think some very strong thoughts about it. As the noise dies back, the whole bottom of your stomach takes on a sour ache. A shiver gets up to the back of your neck and you—you can’t smell him, gonna have to get your run on, what if he got himself _chopped_ —? You’re on your feet with a blink. Strain your auriculars for any sound at all. Scuffling to your right. You whip your head that way.

“What the hell?” Karkat rasps under his breath.

Your shoulders slump.

You get your listen on further—he shuffles around, like he’s getting to his feet. Coughs once (yeah, this place is fucking _dusty,_ ain’t run this far out for a while) and there’s this little sound of confusion that gets your bloodpusher pulsing.

You must have played this card with voodoos a thousand times. Fucking of the thinkpan, right? When totally new surroundings come at your eyes, any troll will have difficulty placing where the old ones were before. Karkat ain’t taking no pains at all to keep quiet.

He can’t run from you too well in a maze either, you’re betting, and don’t that thought just sit so motherfucking well? Not that he will. As long as you don’t show yourself in the mirrors, what cause will he have to know that little bit of chatter gave up his location?

Karkat’s footsteps are soft and uncertain, but like thunder to auriculars like yours. You grin, and take chase like a breath of air.

He ain’t gonna hear so much as a footstep, and you’ll feed your senses on him, sate your pale, enjoy the sight of notice turned _far too late_.


	5. Sunfire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you just need some sleep and a reality check about dumping the aspersions of literary supremacy and just publishing the damn thing.
> 
> Or: why therapists agree I should be on drugs.

Karkat doesn’t need to know you’re on his tail. He’s still all hasty as can be, though he ain’t half gonna get out by rushing. Soon enough he gets himself turned around and backed into corners with his glaring reflection spurning him away. Takes a little bit of doing that your smirking image doesn’t join in, but hell, it’s all angle and silence. You will both need to play this maze together.   
  
You’re just waiting for the inclination to go ahead and snap his fool neck, really. Right now, this is more fun.   
  
He turns another dead corner and feels his way along mirrors that won’t admit him with an iron expression. He must be tired. Got will for days, this one, unbroken and clenched like teeth. It’s not enough for him to feel, but you twist little thoughts, bewilder his sense of direction to draw this dance out. You like watching him wince from your voodoos.   
  
Must distract you, being all enraptured; he finds the door anyway.   
  
This motherfucking comes as a surprise. You did his head good just now to keep him from finding it, didn’t you? Got him about twitching out of his skin with nameless fear, heart going so hard you can smell it on him, shakes in his legs, but he finds it anyway? He’s still just as trapped, mind you. The door is locked. All of that for nothing, him probably about to wet himself with your chucklevoodoos nestled a comfy patch in his thinkpan. He still has to go look for a key.   
  
Karkat breathes a moment, staring, a disbelieving hand against the door (why didn’t you think to make it eject some spikes or something for trolls that do that; that would be motherfucking hilarious). Then—soundlessly, he crumples, cloak and all.   
  
For a minute, the sight of him is a fist driven deep into your guts. You choke.   
  
You relish that pain. Yes, this little one, on his knees at last. Your bloodpusher starts to drum so hard it feels like Karkat is yanking it. Better late than never, right? His thinkpan goes hard-backed like a turtle shell as Karkat tries to will himself back upright and out of heavy despair. You ease under to commit him to his terror—   
  
Your sponge clots start ringing.   
  
Ow, hell. How’d he throw you? You press a hand against your head trying to stop the jumbled noise. Nudge again—Karkat assails you, grinding your voodoo back before you ever make contact. You actually yelp like this is your first voodoo practical or something.   
  
“Hey chucklefuck,” Karkat’s voice—ain’t heard it since the maze began—comes out soft and rumbling with danger. “You really think I’ve never faced one of your kind before?”   
  
You think, in amazement, that on account of him being alive, he must have _won_.   
  
“Fuck off with the fearmongering bullshit,” Karkat snaps. You’re kind of not listening.  
  
Somewhere beneath that cloak, he must have scars from that fight. Must be why he covers up so. His face and hands just escaped somehow.   
  
You are going to pity him _forever_.   
  
He glares into his reflection with those little wriggler eyes, and they’re glassy and exhausted—you’ve been drugged up on sopor and Faygo to keep up with this unbearable chase and he’s had nothing. _Why are you hurting me?_ or _what the hell is wrong with you?_ or _please just stop please please_. You’re waiting.   
  
Karkat tells you, “I don’t fucking get what’s going on in your head—but I know I don’t want to hurt you, Gamzee.”   
  
He’s drawing up to his feet. Slow, like he’s exhausted—but there’s no wobble, and the back of your thinkpan whispers that no one so tired pulls up in one graceful motion. He’s saying hello. Saying _I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I have to._   
  
No more running? Oh, you _like_ the way that hits your pan.   
  
“Let me leave,” Karkat says. “I won’t come back. I’ll fucking vanish and you won’t hear from me ever again. I get it, I fucked up.” He shrugs a shoulder, the one that he hasn’t tied to his body with the remainder of his cloak. It’s lopsided. It’s already healed wrong, and your heart is aching for him. “No reason for one of us to die.”   
  
There’s every reason. He’s fucking killing you.   
  
When your grinning reflection spills out around him, Karkat’s head jerks up. Real quick, he snaps his eyes shut against the tricks of the labyrinth. Not that the darkness of his thinkpan don’t give you plenty to work with. You grin, sink claws deep into his pan and he jerks in place, a spasm of muscle as it becomes yours, and you order him upright with his own terror.   
  
He tries to throw you again and you just crush him like a worm. Forget subtle.   
  
You just want to control him.   
  
Up he comes, pallid with it, fighting your power, but unable to—ah, and there he goes with his motherfucking realization of how screwed he is. Your voodoo ain’t no hack trick. As you drive your power into all his shadowy corners, you feel him thinking that maybe the door was an illusion, that maybe you had him hallucinating it locked. Paranoia is your specialty. Your heart goes soft with that utter pity, look at this poor little wretch. Ain’t ever had a chance. Might know how to fight, but damn well does not know how to save himself.   
  
You walk him up to you, letting his eyes stay closed as you feed him every terror that lurks in the back of his wriggler thinkpan. Shakes like a leaf, he does, when you touch the faint softness of his cheek with your palm, give him a little pap.   
  
A noise of dead terror comes out of him.   
  
You say it into his mind, soft with affection, _I am gonna let you die slow as anything, brother, let you beg longing for an end which don’t come until you ain’t have it in you to beg a second more_. Trace claws over his eyes, putting pressure there—he’s silent and doesn’t twitch and you feel him forcing that—you climb and crush his will and he fights you then.   
  
Tries to yank his head away, thrash you off. You just press your claws until he makes another fear-noise.   
  
He don’t need words for begging and you like this inarticulate terror. Might pull his tongue out, but that’ll be later, this is too fun.   
  
_And I got every knowledge of you in here. I will know well when you truly cannot beg a moment more, and never will again._   
  
You dig your claws in to scoop yourself out some of those sweet wriggler oculars you can’t see, and right then, you get struck by lightning. Both your auriculars really do pop.  
  
Furnace-hot and so bright your shadows got to take a stumble-step backwards, and you’re reeling a little. You still got him—Karkat lifts his head at your command, pushes his eye to your claws, opens his mouth to spit out your words of pleading to be made blind and bloody, but—   
  
Another crackle of white heat happens in his pan. Throws you again.  
  
Fuck, where did he find that strength? A warning screech bursts in your ears as your voodoos fray. He shouldn’t have anything to stop indigo prince’s fearmongering, but he’s got this… what is it? A memory? It sits in him bright as sunfire and he _burns_ you out of him.   
  
“Nice try,” you say, and you pay him back.   
  
You cut into his thoughts and start tearing away pieces that could give him strength, punish him with the loss of all softer thought. Whatever he’s hanging onto to fight his fears, you’ll chop it out of his head.   
  
But it does _nothing_. You cannot motherfucking believe what your eyes convey. His hand falters up on his own command, and it comes armed. "Fuck," you breathe. His eyes are open. They are so close, so wide, so pitched with fury. You can see all manner of detail.   
  
You didn’t notice he wore contacts before. Soft wriggler gray eyes.   
  
Not so real after all. If there’s anything about Karkat that’s real, you’re looking at it now.   
  
His rusted veins almost seem to glow where he’s bloodshot, is the thing. Bright with that sparkling thought that binds your fear like it was nothing but morning mist. You growl a threat. If he doesn’t cede, he’s going to die without a single soft thing alive in his pan. You are cutting him the motherfuck up, but it’s like every piece you tear out of him to make him crumble just makes him stronger.   
  
Of all things, his light feels like _anger_. That ain’t possible, is it? Fighting fear voodoos with anger? You and your kin can feed off of anger. Weaponizing it would take stone-cold crazy.   
  
...Then fuck you sideways, because that is what Karkat is doing with his sickle dug into your chest, his eyes glaring, his teeth bared, and the rest of him locked tight as you fight for control of his puppet strings. You may well never see in your whole lifetime another lowblood to match you _madness for madness_. But oh, his anger is the first thing you’ve felt in any pan to mesh with what pity feels like in yours.   
  
He is twin to your destruction, ain't he?  Messiahs bless.  
  
His voice rasps up charred pitch black, “I told you. I have faced your _kind_ before.”   
  
“Haven’t faced yours,” you marvel, and draw your clubs. “Not once. But I intend to see you to your end, brother, I intend to make your downfall tonight.” You realize by the sudden wideness of his eyes, just how long it’s been since you deigned to speak in your own voice. Your throat has been full of every growl under the moons, but the words feel so heavy on your tongue.   
  
He blinks. “Gamzee? There is no ‘my kind.’”   
  
"That so?”   
  
You move.   
  
A cornea don’t take hardly nothing to butcher, get that jelly slick spilling out, and the whole eye comes out nice and easy when it’s been deflated some. Could pop out the lens—the hard part—feed it to him, maybe the whole eye, make him swallow himself and don’t let him retch. Could do.   
  
Your claws investigate the delicate surface of him gently, feeling for where you want to push, as your other hands force his eyelid wide to prevent interference. Your fear holds him for just long enough and it’s done.   
  
You take his contacts out and crush them, with no further damage done to the troll in your arms. His eyes stare up at you.   
  
Fire-fucking-scalding sun-red. You ain’t never seen nothing like it. They are the massacre of sunrise, a gorgeous glow in an exhausted, beat-to-hell face. They’re prettier than the bloodshot veins around him. Karkat doesn’t breathe.   
  
“You’re an abomination,” you gasp over this mutant freak and his impossible fury. Karkat’s lips part.   
  
“Oh fuck,” he says, voice dulled like something rotten. “What did you do that for, shitskull? Now I really have to kill you.”


	6. For You May Die, But You'll Die Enterred in Stars

You know well that an abomination can be radiance incarnate—beauty never bowed to benevolence. Even some kin call the Dark Carnival can look so ugly. The subtleties of wickedness are not lost upon you.  
  
Your personal abomination’s eyes arrest you utterly even so. Even though you should paint with the contents of his skull (and the maze is on a countdown so snap to), in your thinkpan, where your chucklevoodoos twine you together, you do not want severance from him. The only thing prettier than that impossible color is the anger he uses as a shield.   
  
See, you’re putting the pieces together. Karkat didn’t find this resistance until you made a threat out of spilling that accursed blood; only then up wrath came like the brightest light, sun bolts chasing out your shadows. This isn’t his will, no, never. This is his _being_. With blood like that, tiny, big-eyed Karkat only ever survived on the instinct that his blood could not fall. No scars. No mistakes.   
  
His instinct is to become the sun and rain destruction. How much more beautiful does he intend to be for you?   
  
The only part you’re not understanding is how come he ain’t rushing you now. In his thinkpan, you’re about to be dead. Just like he is a battered and broken corpse in yours.   
  
Neither of you move. Since when did that become an option?   
  
“Don’t count on it,” Karkat says, listening in on your thoughts. Such a bitter, haunted look on his face, so much grief— He tightens his jaw. “ _Stop_ it.”  
  
God, he looks like someone stole the moonlight from his skies and used his very claws to make it crumble. He looks like devastation, in ways not even you taking that first swing could do—   
  
He cracks a palm against his temple and bares his teeth at you. Shadow-edged red turns his snarl into such rare finery. “Don’t you start this again!” He howls, and his sickle is up, but it’s still not moving. “You’re not pale for me! Dammit, Gamzee, get the hell out of my head!”   
  
Why isn’t he attacking?   
  
(You can hurt him now; he doesn’t defend the same way; your concern makes his eyes roll in their sockets and the power surging in your veins lets you know his bones will break under your fingers)   
  
(Messiahs, why don’t _you_ move?)   
  
“Karkat,” you croak after a pause, and maybe you’re just begging him to make the first move; maybe you’re begging that he’ll take your face in his hands and croon while your madness rips the bloodpushers from his chest. You don’t _know_. You’ve never not moved before. What’s wrong with you?   
  
“Fuck you!” Karkat screams, like he knows, like he can see the murders you’ve carried out drawn before his eyes. Maybe he can. His voice shreds itself apart in your thinkpan. _Not pale never pale liar liar li a r_   
  
“Oh, attend that crock of shit! _Never_ pale, he says!” You roar down, all indignant as fuck. Are you trying to comfort him?   
  
You don’t know.   
  
“You think I want you out of my sight? You think I— _never_? Try and repeat that.” You growl low, warbling in the middle of it and you both flinch. You confess like you’re throwing up, the words sprinting out of your throat, pure loathing snarl, “Brother, I am so fucking _pale for you_.”  
  
Look him dead in the eyes and you see it. Hurt him, starved him, hunted him like a dog, traitor to everything you promised, but he’s still a little sugar sweet for you and you want to _bash his fucking head in._  
  
“Why does that—?” He takes a breath. “Don’t do this. I’m not letting you walk out of here.”   
  
“Messiahs, purge me on the spot if I tell a fucking lie,” you groan and neither of you believe it when Karkat’s sickles drop.   
  
It’s a miracle.   
  
You launch yourself at him. Your steel grinds against his.   
  
Fast as hell to raise up, your little wonder. You’re crooning all the things you want to do. Break his bones, tear his fangs out one by one with nails from the floor, chew his skin to crumpled tissue, drive your fist into him until he’s pulverized inside and bleeding out heavy. Dry his veins with your claws buried, tear out his guts and show them to him. Make poetry with his blood. Hurt him, then ruin him, then kill him, then _continue_.   
  
Your clubs hammer down one-two-three and he’s parrying as fast as he can, bony and sweating and looking so scared. You crash your forehead into his as you growl how pale you are. His legs buckle and for a moment, you hold him.  
  
“Calm me down, brother,” you pray, taking a handful of his hair as he stares up at you like the monster you know you are. You want to beat him until he screams for mercy, just once. “Weep and repent, give me some peace—“ You’ve got the palest of mercies for him. You kneel down, cup his face in your hands as you tell him, “Lured you here to play at that.”   
  
“Shut up,” Karkat rattles.  
  
“All a trick, pretending to be something sweet for you, so I could have you here, so I could make you mine.” You smile, and that feels strange on your face. You’re never really one for smiling at trolls. You smile at the messiahs. You used to smile at Karkat’s messages so much. You pap his face idly. “Because you can’t bring me calm, I brought you here to break you, you _desperate fucking fool_.”   
  
“Oh,” Karkat’s voice is strangled with pain. “Well, as long as we’ve cleared that up.”   
  
That little second’s hurt that flits over his face makes you stupid.   
  
The blunt end of his weapon connects with your horn. Jarring force knocks you insensate and you come bolting up just in time to deflect Karkat’s weapons. He slings himself to the left almost too quick to follow. The force of his strikes—and motherfucking _not_ with the blunt end now—numb your wrists. Somehow he winds up left again and draws a deep slash into your side. Cold wet spills out fast and you roar, sling your clubs down at his tiny horns.   
  
Like a whip, Karkat bends double, your clubs whizzing over his stomach. The heartbeat it takes you to realize you haven’t connected lurches, and he’s already twisted away. Plants his feet into the wall, heavy thud, and comes at your throat.   
  
_So motherfucking fast!_ No lowblood moves like this, has you yelping, backpedaling. Throw a clumsy strike at his wounded shoulder. Have to slow him down. He hits the wall. You slam dents into it with your clubs as he rolls away. Kicks out at your legs—you slam a direct hit into his knee— _crack, crack, crack_ your weapons go. His howl makes you roar back, and you thought you just crushed it, but he throws himself at you too fast for that.   
  
This is the thing: you ain’t sure you’re winning right now.   
  
Your weapons crash together and then you’re just lost in fury. Karkat roars at you when you slam your club into his ribs, and it’s an out of control sound, blood mad. Maybe you punctured a lung. His sickles make two neat gouges in your thigh muscle and your leg tries to buckle. He’s stumbling with that knee trying to give on him. Another cut. Must be trying to bleed you out.   
  
Remembrance of your club then—drive him two hits in the stomach, the second time right against the mirror. The mirror cracks. Karkat coughs at you. In your voodoos, his thoughts glaze shimmering white with pain. Grab him by the hair and slam his head back until his eyes roll up. He’s swaying in your grasp. You’re gonna kill him. Hands are shaking, mouth opening on prayers that don’t have a sound. You’re gonna kill him.   
  
You punch him in the nose. The pair of you sink, rolling. Your club clatters away. He tries to put his sickle through your throat—you catch it in your teeth. You snarl back at his growl, but bloodier. The minute he’s under you, you club him across the face hard. His head falls.   
  
You win.   
  
In the time it takes you to blink, the force of his punch rolls you off of him. Messiahs, this boy does not know how to lose.   
  
Your arms are actually so fucking tired you can’t lift your clubs. You drop the heavy weaponry and break his nose. You think he maybe just broke yours with a jab of his horns. You’re sinking again, blood mixing under your claws. One hand has to keep his snapping teeth at bay. You’re so exhausted, panting up a storm, dripping with sweat and blood, and you are nuzzling up to him.   
  
Huh? When did this happen? But you can’t hold onto that thought, because oh.   
  
Oh kings and queens above. The _softness_ of him. The fire in his bones makes him even softer. Every muscle in you tries to collapse. Your face fits into the crook of his shoulder, not even to bite him or anything.   
  
Why’s his heart still beating? You don’t understand. Because this is the post-hunt high, right? You’re tired and spent for the first time in weeks and the calm buzzing down your spine might as well be heaven itself.   
  
Breaths chugging along, and here comes the pity. You can’t believe this touch; it’s soft, and you don’t want to do him damage, oh Messiahs, oh Carnivals all, _there is nothing in you that wants to do him damage and you may die of bliss_.   
  
Karkat slaps at you ineffectually and then curls into your shoulder to give you the puny fucking bite of your lifetime. Teeth gnaw at your skin a little and then as your hands stroke him, he croons the saddest little note and holds onto you.   
  
Karkat. Karkat.   
  
Karkat, alive and well. Against you. You can feel him breathing. You can feel the blood pump his veins wide and shut by turns.   
  
Your calm wants to be wrecked, but you are nothing but an exhausted purr. You can barely move. You lift your head and the madness is gone from those sunfire eyes of his. His tightened mouth does nothing to bar the little croons.   
  
This is pale. Starlight-etched serendipity looking you in the eye. He survived.   
  
Karkat is yours, Messiahs strike you down if you lie.   
  
You will never let him go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To those concerned: the next chapter of the Grub Cage is currently still being shoved through the editing mill because I apparently wrote it when drunk.
> 
> Also: ha ha this chapter could suck more. This fight was boss. Also I promise there is plenty more trouble to come. No cutesy cop out endings are nigh.


End file.
